Problem of the Day: Part I

Being a teacher, I have several “Problem of the Day” lists and I thought I could do some sort of contest on my blog. This is how it will work. Each Tuesday I will post a question on the blog. Anyone who thinks they know the answer can guess what the answer is. The first person to get the right answer each week will get one point (or one point for each question asked). I will keep a running total within the blog (I may even post it on the sidebar if you're lucky) and at the end of a few months I will give a prize to whomever is leading. You will need to mention your name when posting your responses. Since this will be a long running contest, I will have to think of a good prize. I will work on that, but I wanted to get the contest started this week. So here is the first problem:

We start with patterns. The following letters and numbers represent a logical sequence. It is your job to figure out what that sequence is and to give me the next two letters. I am giving three problems this week, so three points are up for grabs.

1. o, t, t, f, f, s, ____, ____

2. j, f, m, a, m, j, ____, ____

3. 8, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, ____, ____

Please explain how you came up with the answers or you won't get the points.

Good luck!

Raffi: Beyond Beluga

Most people my age or older will probably remember Raffi as the guy who brought us Baby Beluga and other great hits. Those who will be graduating with me in June will probably also remember Raffi as the guy who welcomed us to our program three years ago. But what most people do not know is that Raffi has found new ways to enrich this world since he first started singing for children.

His ideas now revolve around the idea of Child Honouring. According to his website,

Child Honouring is a “children first” approach to healing communities and restoring ecosystems; it views how we regard and treat our young as the key to building humane and sustainable world. (It’s not about a child-centered society where children rule, nor a facile notion of children being all things nice; and it has nothing to do with permissive parenting.) It is a global credo for maximizing joy and reducing suffering by respecting the goodness of every human being at the beginning of life, with benefits rippling in all directions.

Child Honouring has nine principles: Respectful Love, Diversity, Caring Community, Conscious Parenting, Emotional Intelligence, Non-Violence, Safe Environments, Sustainability and Ethical Commerce. They are fairly straightforward and most teachers probably buy into each of the principles already. Recently I took a class where we talked about these principles. We made projects that encorporated the ideas and some of them will likely find their way onto this page.

Raffi, along with co-editor Dr. Sharna Olfman, has put together an anthology which explains Child Honouring: Child Honouring: How to Turn This World Around. The book includes a forward by H.H. The Dalai Lama. The link contains a phone number to order the book, but here are links to find the book at the libaries (sorry, just the Victoria library, apparently Hamilton does not have it!):

• Greater Victoria Public Library
  

I have not yet read the book, but many of my friends have and I have heard nothing but good things about it (perhaps one of my friends would like to share their thoughts).

Songbird: A Media Player for the Future

This being Monday, it's time for another post relating to Music. I thought that instead of talking about a band (like I did last week), I would talk about a program that will help you enjoy your music better than any other program out there. The program I am talking about is called Songbird. What's that you ask? Well, it's currently in development and the available version of the program is not that great, though it does appear that it will be the Firefox of media players once the final full version is released (one day I'll do a long post explaining what Open Source Software is).

So what makes this media player so special? For starters it does the same things that iTunes and Windows Media Player do. The big change is that it is something of a web browser itself. The player comes complete with links to well known mp3 blogs and a feature to download the music right into your library without having to open a new window.

Like Firefox, Songbird supports add-ons and already has many written for the program already, including a way to use your ipod with the player. The player is currently going through the developmental stages, but you can download a simple version of the player to try it out. I have this version and it's not quite up to par with Winamp or Windows Media Player, but it promises to be quite a bit better than both.

So if the program isn't finished quite yet, why would I talk about it? So that all of my readers are on the cutting edge of course! If you want a more detailed explanation of the features of this media player, check out the video they made. I'm just waiting for some features to be updated in new versions (like a play count, and maybe even the non-crucial album art) before I make the switch.

Check it out and keep your ears open for it to be released in a better version. No doubt if you keep following this blog, I'll let you know when something big happens.

Adopting/Supporting A Child

Many months ago (this must have been almost a year ago now), I saw the movie, About Schmidt. Besides being a good movie, it featured the main character (Jack Nicholson), supporting a child through some agency. The movie centered a lot around his letters to Ndugu and how he descibed the events that transpired to the young boy a world away.

This movie got me thinking about adopting/supporting a child who needed it. Of course I realize that this is something of a cop out in that I'm throwing my money at a problem to take the guilt away, but I think I am learning something from this. And I fully intend to do other good things so that I don't have to feel guilty.

Anyway, I went through a long process of trying to figure out which agency I would go through. I ended up deciding on Plan Canada (formely Foster Parents Plan), mostly because they were non-political and non-religious – in short, they were just there for the communities and their well being. They have no hidden agenda. Their website also claims that roughly 80% of the money they get goes to “programs benefitting children and families”, 11% goes to “public education and fundraising” and 9% goes to administration.

So I sent my application in over the internet. Plan allows you to choose which region of the world your child comes from, but I let that open because I thought that it wouldn't be fair to support a child based on their geography – something that they don't have a choice over. A few weeks later I got the information in the mail, including a picture of my boy. His name is Phichit and he lives in Thailand. We have exchanged a couple of letters back and forth and I have several pictures of him (and I sent him a picture of me). One day I hope to visit Thailand and to meet him in person. Perhaps I will get money one day to do this. I certainly hope so because it would be nice to actually make a personal connection instead of just sending the money. But if you're unable to go somewhere to help people, something like this would be a small step towards making the world a better place.

A Couch Potato's Dream

This week marks the one time of the year when the three major sports teams that I follow are all playing. Yes, that's right, the baseball season is about to begin and the hockey and basketball seasons are coming to a close. Could this be the first year that all three of Toronto's sports teams make the playoffs in their repsective leagues?

For starters, the Raptors seem to have a playoff spot locked up, with the only question being: will they be seeded fourth, third, or – less likely – second. After taking care of Washington and Miami (the two teams they are fighting with for that third spot) this week, it looks good that Toronto will have a fairly high seeding come playoff time. They have 10 games left and are 3 games behind 2^nd place Cleveland and 6 games back of 1^st place Detroit (who they play twice). I am particularly impressed with Anthony Parker. The Raptors did not fare so well when he was out with an ankle sprain. He's not a big scoring guy, but he's a team player (as are most of the Raptors) and he is one of the major reasons for the team's successes this year.

The Leafs are not so much a lock. They are right in the think of the playoff hunt. As of this writing, they are one point out of eighth with one more game to play than the eigth place Monteal Canadiens. As my friend Rich tells me, it will likely come down to the final game of the season when Toronto and Montreal face off in Toronto. No doubt that game will be well watched throughout the 401 corridor. It would be nice for them to get in as I will no doubt hear it from all the Canuck bandwagon jumpers out here in B.C. who are all have all become born again hockey fans after a season in which the Canucks failed to make the playoffs.

The third team - the Blue Jays - hasn't played a single game yet this year, but they look to have a good chance. After last year's 2^nd place finish in their division (albeit 10 games back of the Yankees and 8 games back of the wildcard winner.), they have made some upgrades (Frank Thomas) and gotten rid of some problems (Ted Lilly – incidentally I was at the game when he and Manager John Gibbons allegedly exchanged fisticuffs in the tunnel to the dugout). Last year started bringing back feelings of '92 and '93, so I hope they can build from that.

I check all of my sports scores at Yahoo Sports. There are many other sites including the NHL site, the NBA site and the MLB site.